No one ever said Donald Trump lacked creativity.
The president is clearly concerned that the Supreme Court could rule against his widespread use of tariffs to engage in diplomacy with countries the world over, and has come up with an idea to make them more popular with Americans: Trump is promising to pay every American, except those who are already very wealthy, $2,000 a person.
Trump wrote this on Truth Social:
“People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k’s are Highest EVER. We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion. Record Investment in the USA, plants and factories going up all over the place. A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”
The Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments regarding a case that will decide whether the president has the power to unilaterally impose tariffs without action from Congress, under his broad emergency powers. Last week, the SCOTUS justices seemed skeptical that the president possesses this power. A key moment came when Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch asked whether the president could use these same emergency powers to impose tariffs in other contexts, such as to counteract climate change.
I don’t care how much you love Donald Trump: If the president can declare tariffs on that basis, then just imagine what Democrats will do when they get back into power!
Now, as for Trump’s latest scheme: $2,000 for every American sounds like a great deal. When will the checks be in the mail, I wonder? Well, don’t get too excited. Treasure Secretary Scott Bessent clarified that these cash payments to Americans could take many forms.
Here’s the problem: While it certainly sounds good for every American to receive a check for $2,000, the revenue raised from tariffs comes from — well, all of us.
Tariffs are, in fact, a tax on the American people. Foreign countries don’t pay them. Foreign firms don’t pay them. The cost of the tariff is paid by the importer, no matter the good, product, resource or service in question. Whoever is purchasing the tariffed item, whether it’s Japanese cars or South American sugar, is the party who pays. That party then passes the cost on to domestic consumers by raising the price they’ll charge when they sell it in this country. All of the revenue raised by the federal government vis-à-vis tariffs is being collected from the American people.
Seen in that light — the true light — the idea of us receiving some of that money back in the form of checks is a bit absurd. The tariff revenue was collected from us, in the form of higher prices. Skip the checks, just get rid of the tariffs, and watch prices fall!
Conservatives, if they’re being honest with themselves, know that the best way to have a healthy economy is to have a federal government that is maximally hands off. It is not a conservative agenda, but a socialist agenda — a Zohran Mamdani agenda, perhaps — that wants central government control over the economy, in the form of vast regulation, price fixing and taxation. Tariffs are taxes: Conservatives know this, and the Supreme Court knows it too.
So with respect to those $2,000 checks — thank you, Mr. President, but no thank you. Just cut taxes, and cut tariffs, and watch the magic of the market go to work.
Robby Soave is co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary.
